From a piece by Cecil Eby on the not particularly lovely time had by the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Civil War: In their time off, the recruits prowled the city; they sampled the local conac [sic], said to have been blended from equal parts of rancid olive oil and low-octane gasoline; and they bought…
Last night reading Josep Rondissoni’s Classes de cuina for the 1930-1 season I came across an illustration of the packaging of one of the various foreign ingredients he uses, Royal Baking Powder. It’s actually called the Droste effect, of course–or at least in Holland. José Rondissoni was a Swiss cook who taught a blend of…
Rosemary has already been established as indispensable in combating Asiatic cholera. Here’s the proverb upon which such folk medicine may have been based: El que pasa por romero y no lo coge, si le viene algún mal que no se enoje. Adapted: If without plucking twixt rosemary you pass, Don’t bemoan your leaky arse. Sweeter…
Modern law generally accepts the principal of individual responsibility, particularly for serious crimes. Warée in Curiosités judiciaires (1859), cited on this excellent and highly entertaining French criminal law site, gives an example of how not to proceed: In a Spanish village a tailor was sentenced to be hung. The inhabitants went and found the judge…
In early November 1943 a contingent of Turkish, Spanish, Romanian, Italian and South American Jews arrived in Westerbork. The popular journalist Philip Mechanicus records in his diary (bit of a dodgy English translation here) the “small colony of Turks” which made its home near his bed and whose “lively, agile children, quick as water” gabbled…
No, not Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi. I’m talking about Noble Drew Ali, prophet of possibly “the only religion ever to be founded in Newark, NJ”, Moorish Science. Although his early career as a magician in a gypsy troupe took him to Egypt and conversations with a high priest, I don’t think he ever went to Morocco,…
This bit from James Richardson, Travels in Morocco (1860) sounds like the many Spanish myths of troves (often guarded by dragons) left behind by the outscored hordes: The inhabitants of Barbary all bury their money. The secret is confided to a single person, who often is taken ill, and dies before he can discover the…